tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post2413627988838382215..comments2020-06-08T20:21:34.334-05:00Comments on ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore: The Philosophy Smoker ControversyDoctor Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13189506916480012553noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-24166774796909834652011-12-09T00:31:47.838-06:002011-12-09T00:31:47.838-06:00Thanks for responding Dr. Moore. First I want to ...Thanks for responding Dr. Moore. First I want to make it clear that I am all in favor of mothers being professional academics and doing as much as we can as a profession to enable and encourage that! It's just not clear to me that being in a situation where you can't drink because of pregnancy (not motherhood but its very temporary precondition!) should be the basis for drinking being banned at the smoker (or similar evening type event). Sipping cranberry juice is not an indignity nor will it weigh against you at the smoker (in fact if you remain sober it will probably act in your favor!) <br /><br />However, the point about lateness etc. is well taken. It seems to me that if hiring committees want to meet candidates in a "less formal setting" maybe they should provide an *additional* option of a daytime cafe meet or something for those who don't wish to deal with a late night scene, rather than banning or outlawing the evening "party" setting. I'm also not sure that desiring alcohol in such settings is a sign of dysfunction! There's plenty of dysfunction, to be sure, but even if everyone were "fully functional" I'm not sure that alcohol wouldn't be appreciated. The particular stress and artificiality of the cattle call conference seems to naturally call for it. I do worry, in fact, about calls for "temperance" especially when they are made in the name of women's interests. There is an unavoidable aspect of this profession which requires one to be able to be "professional" in the evening, when socializing, and when alcohol is flowing (even if one does not partake). And as a general anti-Puritan I don't think the interests of the non-partakers should trump those of the partakers.Emma B.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-17302899572446835262011-12-08T09:24:16.106-06:002011-12-08T09:24:16.106-06:00Though I'm sympathetic with Emma B.'s asse...Though I'm sympathetic with Emma B.'s assessment of the social ineptitude of our little world, after dismissing the inconveniences and prejudices thereto of motherhood as relatively uncommon (and 'therefore' not worth addressing?), Emma B. goes on to note that the alcohol component makes the whole thing bearable...<br />Is the main issue not so much how we go about being together as the fact that we're (perhaps) all fairly dysfunctional as academics in the first place? Of course, if you're in a 'condition' where alcohol or other coping mechanisms are unreliable or undesirable, it appears you have already selected yourself out of the pool. This is to say, why are we so much in need of social crutches in the first place if not because this system makes us crazy?Proffehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02236758928997406729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-19368912894978377292011-12-07T22:02:16.567-06:002011-12-07T22:02:16.567-06:00Maybe because I'm viewing things from the outs...Maybe because I'm viewing things from the outside, I'm still under the naive impression that these events are supposed to be professional interactions. To be honest, I've never been comfortable with the idea expressed in your post, as well as several of the responses, that a search committee is making more than a hire in selecting a colleague. To be fair, this attitude pervades graduate school, so this attitude regarding the Smoker is not an isolated phenomenon.<br /><br />There are many types of professional relationship, but they are all professional. To endorse the use of anything but professional standards in the process of selecting a colleague is a disgusting abuse of authority on the part of search committees and bad faith on the part of job seekers. With that said, acknowledging the role these interactions play and the underlying attitudes that motivate them is a valuable professional service and I thank you and your respondents for it.<br /><br />In conclusion, I think that abandoning the Smoker is a good start, but this general attitude of acceptance for non-professional standards of evaluation also needs to be on the horizon for critics of the Smoker.Josh Kurdyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02552568297398395737noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-29653087831583189812011-12-04T18:19:57.914-06:002011-12-04T18:19:57.914-06:00As far as I know, the practice at MLA is that hiri...As far as I know, the practice at MLA is that hiring institutions throw parties at their suites or otherwise conduct "informal" meetings elsewhere. The strange semi-formality of the "smoker" is an excrescent purgatory that could only be thought up by the ranks of the most socially awkward philosophers. Even worse is the official APA advice to job seekers: "approach the table with a sheepish expression on your face." So we're going to set up a situation to enable "informal" interactions between candidates and hiring committees, only to then tell you you only ought to attend while grinding your knees into broken glass? Madness.<br /><br />However, I think I disagree that these informal evening alcohol-assisted events should be discouraged, since part of being a colleague is participating in this sort of "collegiality" (entertaining visiting speakers, etc.). I wish I were more sympathetic to the pregnant woman on the blog you cite, but I don't think the entire conduct of a professional society should be based on the comfort of someone in a relatively unusual situation. And really, alcohol is the only thing that makes the whole business even remotely bearable.Emma B.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-10993915012512888982011-12-04T17:41:51.709-06:002011-12-04T17:41:51.709-06:00I think you've about covered it, Leigh. Every ...I think you've about covered it, Leigh. Every now and then--and now again thanks to your post--I wonder whether The Smoker played a role in me 'blowing it' my first year on the market. Just as you describe, I was invited by each of the committees to visit them at their respective tables at the smoker. I was pretty green and certainly overwhelmed by the carnival atmosphere (okay, I exaggerate, but it does get loud in there), but I thought things went pretty well all in all. The exception was that members of one institution failed to show at either of their two tables. It was a position I was especially interested in, so I was eager to meet with them. But after waiting and waiting, and with the place thinning out, I headed out for less intense socializing. <br /><br />The next morning, as I was coming out of a session, I ran into one of the committee members, who recognized me and asked, "Where were you last night? We were waiting for you." Needless to say, I was flabbergasted, and wasted whatever remaining time to make an impression explaining my own failure to locate them at the smoker (and of course wondering what kind of cosmic accident made that failure possible).<br /><br />On the whole, despite agreeing with your criticisms of it, I haven't been too bothered by the smoker, although I do find it awkward to share the interview experience with the competition. More than once I've sat down at a table with respected colleagues and friends who are also candidates for the same job. Those have often turned into good conversations, however, and sometimes that's all you need to get a visit to campus.Paul Haughtnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-40690092078784881492011-12-04T17:16:52.088-06:002011-12-04T17:16:52.088-06:00I'm highly sympathetic to this group of writer...I'm highly sympathetic to this group of writers and their concerns, and I agree that the Smoker should be eliminated. Frankly, I think the Smoker is a madhouse and a professional embarrassment. But I don't think their reasons suffice to justify that conclusion.<br /><br />In general many of the implicit bias concerns, both alcohol and non-alcohol related, will come up for job seekers at the campus visit stage if they were avoided at the APA. And as you point out, this may not even be such a bad thing. The apt comparison for me seems to be law firms, which use a variety of techniques to test a candidates' "off-stage" personality, some involving alcohol, because they aren't simply making a hire: they're considering a possible co-owner of the firm, a partner. The same is true of a tenure-track hire: hiring committees are evaluating candidates as a co-governor of their department, and they'd be irresponsible to limit their evaluations to the highly formalized interview and job talk. <br /><br />I'd like to know if there's evidence of implicit bias at this stage of the hire: we have plenty of evidence of implicit bias in picking which CVs to interview, but I'm not sure if we have the same quality of evidence for the formal and informal interview stage, if only because it's more difficult to create a rigorous experiment. <br /><br />Of course it stands to reason that implicit biases play a role in this stage as well, but as Jeff Hamrick suggests, the APA may not be able to handle this from above. We can't formalize every single interaction between interview and tenure-review, so there will be plenty of opportunities for bias to impact a candidate.<br /><br />So: I say get rid of the Smoker, but I'm not betting it'll get any easier to be a woman in philosophy.anotherpanaceahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08170804573665745672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-58708945641904474352011-12-04T16:57:57.873-06:002011-12-04T16:57:57.873-06:00A brief comment on policies and procedures at the ...A brief comment on policies and procedures at the Joint Mathematics Meetings: there is a formal ban on informal interviews in hallways, restaurants, hotel rooms, bars, etc. The ban is almost entirely ineffectual. In fact, I would say that roughly 35-40% of all interviewing activity actually occurs through these venues. The main motivator seems to be the high price of renting a 2-person or 4-person interview table from the conference.<br /><br />A better approach is to acknowledge that propping up the prices of the interview tables with a ban that everybody disregards is silly. We should instead make use of the tables "free" and then spread the cost of organizing the interviewing venue over all conference participants. After all, matching good candidate employees to good candidate employers serves the whole profession and should, at least in principle, be supported by all conference attendees (vis-a-vis registration fees). After all, many of the conference attendees either *have* benefited from or *will* benefit from a well-organized interviewing venue.<br /><br />What does not work is a mildly embarrassing system by which people "meet clandestinely," joke awkwardly about how they are breaching conference/MAA policy, and then proceed anyway with formally informal (or is that informally formal?) interviews.<br /><br />Though I disagree with 45% of what Art Carden has to say, this is a great example in which "regulation from above" results in an stupid collection of unintended consequences.Jeff Hamrick / Constable Samhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10269150468777168771noreply@blogger.com